The Harry Potter Who Wasn't
by Snape4evarrrrrrr
Summary: This story is told through the eyes of Rose Zeller, a no-name Hufflepuff who inadvertently changes the course of the entire wizarding world when she wishes that The Boy Who Lived had never attended Hogwarts. AU after first chapter, set at Hogwarts during Harry's 7th Year.


**The Harry Potter Who Wasn't**

_**Chapter One: The Wish**_

The sun never seemed to shine anymore. Granted, in Great Britain grey skies were as familiar to its countrymen as Earl Grey tea and the Queen; but with the current state of things, the neverending rain was more unwelcome than ever. As a young Rose Zeller stared mournfully out the window, the only thing on her mind was the hope that the sun might peek out from behind its resting spot today, if only for a brief moment. How she longed to see those rays of light.

Rose probably should have had more on her mind in that moment than the comings and goings of the sun; after all, things at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry - where Rose had studied for the past two years - had taken a significant turn for the worse this year. Her old headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, had been murdered right before summer holidays. Since then, the whole country had fallen apart. Rose and her family had been somewhat hopeful that things might at least have retained some semblance of normalcy back at her school, but those hopes were dashed the day Rose found out that a henchman of the darkest wizard in the world was the new headmaster - and that was only the beginning. Rose was now more than a month in, and everything from the class lists, to the school staff, to the castle decor had been changed. Rose had only wanted to get a good magical education so that she could move on to accomplish important things as an adult; why did her life have to become so complicated?

Rose turned her attention away from the droplets of rain racing each other down the window glass, and back to Professor Carrow. The new professor had just finished instructing the class on how to properly infect their enemies with spattergroit, and implored them all to practice on their own before class tomorrow, where they would be tested on their performance. Rose resolved to go searching for a Slytherin after lunch so that she could get some practice in before she had to bunker down on her Potions essay for Professor Slughorn. This was the option most of the other Hufflepuffs in her class would choose as well; if they were going to be forced to perform hexes on each other, they would at least be consistent in their attempts to find someone who deserved to be cursed. Luckily for Rose, there were plenty of such students enrolled at Hogwarts nowadays. Members of the Slytherin house had believed these years would be their golden years at Hogwarts, now that Severus Snape and the other death-eaters were in charge of things; ironically, Slytherin students were hexed and cursed more than any other now that such practices were allowed, Slytherin still being the house most universally despised by the other three.

The bell rang, and Rose slid out of her chair quickly, having already packed her bag in anticipation of the end of class. No one dilly-dallied anymore, not with so many students keen to try out the new spells they've been learning on stragglers. It was best practice to try out your assigned spells on someone who was lagging behind, alone; there was less of a chance of them banding together with their friends to "practice" back at you. Rose didn't really have any friends, and as a result she liked to be out the door before any other student got the chance to catch up to her with their wand. She was going to rush to lunch, where she'd be surrounded by some of the older Hufflepuffs who knew more spells and who would help defend her if necessary. Rose hugged her bag to her chest and kept her head down as she walked briskly through the halls toward the Great Hall. Much to her dismay, she had just turned the last corner before running headlong into Headmaster Snape.

Headmaster Snape sent fear into the hearts of the majority of the student body, including Rose Zeller. She began to stammer out her apologies, but the headmaster seemed to have his own preoccupations, and didn't appear to have even noticed Rose walking straight into him. Seeing this, Rose stopped spouting her sorries and was about to simply turn around and head back in the direction she came from when the headmaster finally seemed to break free from whatever deep thoughts had been occupying his mind.

"What are you standing around for?" he sneered at her. "Don't you have somewhere to be? Or should I provide you with detention to entertain you?"

Rose shook her head and apologized again, rushing past him as quickly as she could. At

last she had reached the Great Hall, and joined her fellow Hufflepuffs at their table for a quick meal.

"I'd heard the food was supposed to be great here," someone said in a strange accent from down the table. Rose looked to her right and saw a young boy holding up a dinner roll with a charred end, staring at her across the few empty seats between them. "I had expected a little better than this," he said, smiling good naturedly. Rose couldn't remember ever having seen this boy before, but he was too old to be a first year, and she couldn't imagine anyone transferring to Hogwarts during this time; she concluded he must simply have a forgettable face. She stared back at him, unimpressed.

"What, are you new here?" she asked doubtfully. He smiled even wider.

"Aye, I am," he said. "Which I could understand if you found it difficult to believe." He scooted over the empty space so he was now sitting next to her. "If my parents had any idea what was going on here, I don't believe they ever would have enrolled me. But, alas, we just came here from the Isles a few months ago, and had no idea the state of wizarding Britain. I can't understand how this hasn't made world-wide news yet."

Rose looked down at the copy of the Daily Prophet across the table from her and had to agree with the boy. It was hard to imagine how Voldemort and his followers were able to remain so hushed up about their domination of the wizarding Britain's government. There were so many witches and wizards on the run, she would have thought some other governments would have caught wind of what was going on and tried to intervene by now. It was apparent, however, that no help was coming. The only news articles seemed to be about continued efforts to search for Harry Potter and his associates, or how Harry Potter is a threat to wizardkind. Rose was so sick of seeing the name Harry Potter in print, sick of hearing it whispered everywhere she went, like he was somehow going to be able to save them all. All Harry Potter ever seemed to do was bring danger and destruction with him; Rose was glad he was no longer at Hogwarts.

"Don't you wish things were different?" the boy said, breaking Rose out of her reverie.

"Of course I do, idiot! Who wouldn't?" Rose snarled. "Slaving away in class all day, being hexed by other students, fed whatever burnt left-overs aren't good enough for the staff - all while the rest of our world outside goes to hades! And no one bothers to do anything, because everyone's convinced that some bratty little Hogwarts drop-out is going to come around and save the day. Well you know what I really wish?" Rose's voice had risen loud enough to catch the attention of the other Hufflepuffs at the table, and if she wasn't careful she'd find herself in more trouble than she needed right now, so she took a deep breath and steadied her voice. "What I wish, is that stupid Harry Potter had never come to Hogwarts."

There was a glint in the boy's eye as he leaned in close to Rose, closer than Rose was comfortable with, and said in a low voice, "If you think that will help...done."

***

_[[Full Disclosure: This story was inspired by a Buffy the Vampire episode, in which Cordelia Chase wishes that Buffy had never come to Sunnydale. I thought it would be a fun exercise to imagine what JKR's world would be like if someone had wished Harry Potter had never come to Hogwarts. This fanfic is the result. I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or any of its characters or plot, nor anything affiliated with the Harry Potter Franchise; those belong to Joss Whedon (I think) and JKR, respectively. This is simply a creative writing exercise. And as I'm not making any money off of this fanfic, that's going to be the only disclaimer.]]_


End file.
